


Ash Sky

by setoboo



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Ahh the best thing to write, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Sawada Tsunayoshi, Blood and Gore, But not willingly - ya dig?, Dark Devotion that transcends Death, F/F, F/M, Female Sawada Tsunayoshi, Get his guardians, Lambo's Bazooka is So Useful Guys, M/M, Mafia Boss Sawada Tsunayoshi, Multi, No Beta because I am EXTREME like that, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Harm, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Tsuna is gonna kick ass, and then ruin some fools, cause you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setoboo/pseuds/setoboo
Summary: Tsuna wants three things.His Guardians back, his friends happy, andRevenge
Relationships: Minus Lambo - because he is a child, Sawada Tsunayoshi/Vongola Tenth Generation Guardians
Comments: 24
Kudos: 302





	1. Chapter 1

“Lambo!” Tsuna screams, pulling himself across the pockmarked remains of the Vongola estate and towards the crumbled form of the Lightning Guardian in front of him.

Lambo cracks one blurry green eye open, dazed and hurt, it takes him a moment to focus on Tsuna’s approach. Once the teen registers who it is approaching him though he whimpers and shakily reaches towards the older male. Lips soundlessly moving around words that he doesn’t have the air to push out.

“Lambo.” Tsuna’s voice is wrecked as he uses all the strength left in his arms to pull himself to the shattered remains of a wall beside the teenager. With shaking hands he reaches out to touch Lambo, running one hand through dark black hair tangled with broken wall plaster and blood. Lambo sucks in a breath when Tsuna’s hand finds a sizable gash on the back of his head, but he had little energy to do more than that in the face of more pain being added to everything he is already feeling. Tsuna’s other hand takes the one Lambo had reached out to him with, linking their fingers together as strongly as he can with his own lingering weakness.

“ _ Tsu _ …” Lambo chokes on his words, fighting to get them out. “ _ Tsuna _ ..”

“Shh.. Lambo, don’t talk. Just save your strength okay.” Tsuna babbles desperately, using the one hand not holding Lambo’s in a death grip to continue checking his Lightning Guardian for injuries. It was so hard to see past his own blurry eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was tears or the multiple hits to the head he had taken that was making focusing his eyes so hard. But either way, it was impeding his search for what was ailing Lambo.

It didn’t take him very long to find the more serious injuries on his guardian.

Like the giant hole in Lambo’s left side.

The noise Tsuna makes at finding the gaping wound could only be called desolate. An anguished sob breaking past his lips as his fingers skirt the edges of ragged skin and ripped cow print shirt. Lambo shakily sucks in a breath at the touch but doesn’t try to knock Tsuna’s probing hand away. Only desperately holding onto the hand in his own with bone grinding strength as he grits his teeth and bares out the touch.

“Lambo... Lambo.” Tsuna brokenly chants as he pulls his blood stained fingers away from the oozing wound.

Lambo’s shoulders shake minutely, and Tsuna thinks he is crying for a moment - wouldn’t have blamed him if he was because Tsuna feels like crying himself. But the wheezy noises he makes doesn’t sound like crying.

It sounded like laughter.

“ _ Who am I? _ ” Lambo sings with a noticeable rasp. “ _ I’m Lambo. _ ”

Tsuna whimpers at the childish song that Lambo barely has enough energy to sing loud enough for him to hear. How many times had his youngest guardian sang this very same song throughout the years? Sometimes absent mindedly, sometimes while doing chores, often just simply to annoy Hayato.

“Stop! Please Lambo. You have to save your strength.” He begs, not sure if that was the truth, or if he just can’t handle Lambo’s broken voice singing a song that reminds him too sharply of Lambo as a wide eyed five year old desperate for attention and to belong. The image of his Lightning Guardian was already too painful, his heart can’t take the thought of a broken and bloody child any more than it can handle the current scenario.

“ _ So..sorry. _ ” Lambo breaths out the apology.

Tsuna is about to tell him it’s okay, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He just needs to concentrate on staying awake and alive. When a trio of shadows come to loom over them.

Tsuna dodges the first attack only thanks to his intuition. But it is a slow motion - no energy for anything greater left in him. He is barely able to lean out of the way as a claw tipped hand runs through the crumbled remains of the wall where Tsuna’s head had been only bare moments ago. Leaving five gaping holes left in the brickwork instead of the Vongola heir’s face.

The second attack is just as fast - but isn’t aimed at Tsuna.

The other two monsters -  _ because that is what they are, monsters that have destroyed everything that Tsuna holds dear _ \- have both set their eyes on Lambo’s prone form. The Lightning Guardian has no strength in him to move away from the vultures attempting to descend on his battered form.

Something in Tsuna _ breaks  _ at the acceptance he can see in the one watery green eye Lambo has open - something he had only barely been holding together since this whole nightmare began. Something angry and vengeful and possessive reaches out through him and his flames burn white hot. Erupting from his skin, wild and dangerous in a way that has never happened. 

His Sky Flame reaches out desperately without Tsuna’s control. Clawing at the frayed edges of his connections to his other Guardians. Desperate for their comfort, their closure, their strength. The reassurance he isn’t alone.

There is nothing for him to find but the brutal void where they should have been and the faint echoes of pain and devotion until the end. 

The only one he finds left amongst his closest companions is Lambo’s wavering green flame that latches onto him without hesitation. Desperate to give him comfort, to  _ be _ comforted in his final moments.

**_“No!”_** Tsuna roars, haloed by a painful white-hot fire he can’t control. **_“You will not have him!”_**

The three attackers erupt into white-hot infernos instantly. They die without a whisper of sound, just as they had appeared. No words or warnings, just mindless intent to kill and numbers seemingly unending. They stand still as their clawed hands disintegrate, their blank faces melt away, they are nothing but more ash piles left in the hellscape that had become the Vongola Villa within seconds.

Tsuna shakes as the flames start to recede. He doesn’t have the strength to fuel anything this powerful at this point and he isn’t sure how he managed to bring out such power except due to the fear of losing his Lambo. 

“Tsuna.” Lambo calls to him, trying to use his free hand to push himself up. It’s a futile effort as his other arm only shakes and pushes some dirt and debris away from the prone italian. There is no strength in his arm to lift himself with. But his one open eye is desperate, pleading for something. Their hands are still interlocked and Lambo squeezes again. 

Tsuna feels it in the way their flames are twined together in a distraught tangle. The aching want to be as close as physically possible. The desire, no the  _ need _ to protect, and to be protected. Everything else that grounds them is gone. No relentless Rain to sweep away the death and fire. No elusive Mists to wash over the field for them to escape into. No Storm to fight away the enemies in a hurricane of explosions. No brilliant Sun to heal the wounds that litter the both of them. No Cloud to descend upon these mindless drones and save them. It is only Sky and Lightning left. Broken, bloody, and without hope.

Tsuna shuffles slowly as the last of his Flames die off, he releases his Lambo’s hand for a moment. Only the barest moment of no contact - but even that is almost too much for his Flames, as he feels that anguished possessive feeling flow through him again. The feeling pushes him forward with strength he shouldn’t have left. Gives him the boost he needs to wrap his shaking arms around his Lambo and pull the teenager up. Lambo makes a pained grunt, and his one open eye glitters with tears - but he helps by shifting as much as he can until the teenager is cradled in Tsuna’s lap. Black hair tickling Tsuna’s cheek where he has the young italian’s head resting on his shoulder. 

The Vongola heir takes care to not touch the gaping wound in his Guardians side, but it is obvious that the movement has opened it wider. Tsuna can feel blood staining his left leg. But he can’t be totally sure it’s Lambo’s and not his own. 

Lambo sighs and goes boneless in the Sky’s hold. Tangling one hand in the remnants of Tsuna’s burnt and bloody shirt. Each breath is ragged and weak from his chest, but Tsuna counts each one as a win - as more time to think and plan. He will not let his Lambo die in his arms. 

Tsuna leans his head down and gently rests his forehead on the crown of Lambo’s head. Careful of the gash he had found there. He can feel his eyes starting to burn, and his shoulders starting to tremor even as he attempts to keep still so he doesn’t jolt Lambo around. He doesn’t have time for tears. Doesn’t have the  _ energy _ for them even. But the pain and hopelessness is starting to hit him hard, and it is demanding payment from him. Demands he deal with the yawning void in his heart that is only filled by the slowly flickering Flame of his last guardian. A chasm too big to be filled by the two of them alone. 

Lambo’s hand comes up to cradle his face with shaking fingers and it startles him out of the dark thoughts starting to drag him down. He pulls back from Lambo’s filthy hair and blinks wet eyes down at the younger man in question.

_ “Gotta...stay...calm...Tsuna.”  _ Lambo rasps with a pained smile, moving his thumb to wipe away a stray tear from the brunette’s face.

“I can’t.” Tsuna’s voice quavers. Using Lambo’s oft used line in response, because it is true. He can’t be calm anymore. 

The calm he had been using to keep himself together was shattered when Lambo was attacked. All that is left in him is a want to cry and protect the last thing of  _ his _ he has left. Deep below those two feelings of despair and possessiveness is a dark  _ want _ though _ , _ he _ wants _ his home back. He  _ wants _ his Guardians back, he  _ wants  _ the damned  _ heads _ of whoever did this to him and  _ his _ on a silver platter. 

_He_ _wants_ **_revenge_** _._

_ “Geeze.”  _ Lambo drops his shaking hand from Tsuna’s cheek, like it is suddenly too heavy for him to keep it up any more.  _ “I thought...I was...The crybaby.” _

Tsuna can’t help the broken chuckle that startles out of him at that. It doesn’t stop the tears from falling, but it helps a little bit.

The small moment of humor seems to summon more of the  _ monsters  _ that have ruined everything Tsuna holds dear. He feels the approach of a drove of them. They never attack alone, he's found. The monsters are a blank faced swarm. They are weak and only have speed and numbers on their side. But that is all they needed in the end. A war of attrition instead of strength. It didn’t matter how many of these beasts were struck down, a dozen more would replace them in minutes. 

Something controls these monsters, Tsuna’s intuition tells him. These things are a weapon created to combat his empire. But he doesn’t know who could have the resources or the desire for his death to create them in the first place. Never had a moment to hunt for the one responsible while trying to defend his home and people. 

He swears if he finds a way out of this situation, he will make whoever did this pay. He will show them why you do not mess with the Vongola Famiglia. They will suffer for years, he will decimate everything they hold dear. Burn it all to ash and rub those ashes into open wounds. 

But before any of that can happen, he has to deal with the scavengers.

Tsuna sneers at the blank faced horde that has surrounded them. He curls himself around Lambo, knees pulled up as much as he can and lays his body on top of the teenagers. Trying not to feel sick as his shirt immediately starts to soak up Lambo’s blood from his wound. Lambo makes a weak noise and seems like he is trying to push him away.

_ “Run.” _ Lambo hisses desperately.

**“** No! **”** Tsuna snarls back without pause before turning to face the crowd. It looked to be about five of them this time.  **“You will not have him!”** He spits with blind fury to their unchanging faces. Desperately reaching for that same fearsome fire that had threatened to charr him from within.  **“As long as I breathe you will not have him!”**

One darts forward, and Tsuna screams as he pulls that angry fire to life again. It is painful, it feels like it is eating away at him. He points at the attacker and it jumps back to avoid the fire a half second too late. The monster immolates immediately.

Tsuna doesn’t look at his hand - if he does he’s liable to be sick. He can see his skin starting to char under the angry blaze he’s pulled forth. Feels it pull and splits skin as the wicked white Flames move on to start devouring the muscle underneath. 

He is willing to pay the price to fuel these Flames.  _ They will not have him _ . They will not take Lambo from him too.

Lambo moves his arm slowly, but Tsuna doesn’t have a moment to pay attention to what his weakened Lightning is doing. Too intent on feeding rage and pain into his Flames so he can move fast enough to catch these jumpy monsters as they dive in for the kill. His eyes waver momentarily to his hand and he has to look away so he doesn’t vomit at the gruesome sight. Trying to convince himself he had not seen blackened bone poking out from peeling flesh. But the pain grounds him enough that he manages to catch three of the creatures in a wave of ghostly white flame as they take the jump towards him.

That only leaves one left.

“ _ Tsuna-nii… _ ” Lambo whispers. His mouth almost directly next to the Vongola heir’s ear from where he is sheltering the italian with his body.

Tsuna hears a loud thunk and feels a heavy weight suddenly appear in the small space between his body and Lambo’s. The weight startles him, and he rears back enough to see what is in his lap besides his injured Guardian.

Sitting in between them is the unmistakable purple barrel of the Ten-Year-Bazooka. Tsuna’s eyes widen when he notices one of Lambo’s horns has been jammed into the side of the gun, wildly sparking with built up electricity, skittering up and down the bazooka. Lambo’s shaking hand is wrapped around the trigger.

And the barrel is directly on Tsuna’s stomach.

“ _ They will not have you. _ ” Lambo murmurs almost too quiet to hear, voice dark with the same possessiveness that was giving Tsuna his current strength. “ _ Not as long as I breathe. _ ”

“Wait!” Tsuna shrieks, eyes darting up to see the last of the attackers making his jump. He moves too slow and the fire misses by a hair's breadth. Tsuna watches in horror as claws slide through his Lightning’s throat. Blood rushing from the punctures immediately and bubbling up from smiling lips. 

“Lambo!” He wails, but that is all he has time to do, because Lambo’s hand twitches and he pulls the trigger.

And in a burst of smoke, Vongola Decimo disappears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an older work of mine that I started even before Forecast - like when I first got into KHR old - and has just been sitting in my docs for a long ass while. It has multiple chapters already done, but I never got around to posting it.
> 
> But heck, I figure its a right of passage at this point to write a Tsuna time-travel story. So I will throw my hat in the rink.
> 
> Lemme know if you spot any errors, this thing is ancient. It wouldn't surprise me if you do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hooooo boy, here we go.

Tsuna wakes with a choked off scream of pain and despair. Eyes wide but only seeing the specter of Lambo’s pierced throat and blood bubbling past his lips. One open eye going blank and the bang of the Bazooka too loud in his ears.

Tsuna wraps shaking arms around himself, his horror blinding him to his surroundings. He does not notice the bed he is sitting in, nor the blankets wrapped around his legs. He doesn’t register the dark room with what seems to be posters taped to the walls. He only hears the ghostly whisper of his Lightning fiercely saying  _ “They will not have you.” _ And the sickening realization that in the end he had been able to save no one. Not even his Lambo.

His eyes start to burn with tears that fall without his permission. Shoulders shaking he leans his head down and openly sobs like he hasn’t done since he was a child. Great fat droplets rolling down his cheeks and soaking his nightshirt and blanket. 

He isn’t able to hold himself up in the wake of his grief, collapsing back onto the bed he still hasn't noticed. Tsuna curls into himself. Chest heaving with the force of his sobs.

_ “Gotta stay calm, Tsuna.” _ Lambo whispers from that yawning chasm in his heart that is empty and devoid of his Guardians.

“I..I can’t!” He answers the ghost through his stuttering sobs. “I can’t, Lambo. I can’t!” 

He chants it. Tells the ghost he can’t do it and hopes that maybe he will be magically hit with the Ten-Year-Bazooka again. Because that's how it worked for Lambo. If Lambo couldn’t be calm, if he says  _ ‘I can’t’ _ then the gun comes out and someone who  _ can _ deal with it comes. 

And Tsuna can’t deal with it. He can’t.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there sobbing in the dark and begging his Lightning to understand that he  _ Can’t Do This.  _ But eventually there is nothing left in him, his nose is running and feels raw. His throat throbs when he swallows and his eyes itch badly. He feels like a mess and desperately wants to fall asleep and find out this was all a nightmare. 

He wants to go to sleep and wake up in his ridiculously opulent bed at the Vongola Villa. Wants to feel strong arms around his waist and the warmth of one of his Guardians' skin on his own after a night of laughter and passion and making a mess of his silk sheets. Wants the smell of espresso and warm pastries to wake him along with the sunshine peeking through the annoying crack in his drapes that he can never seem to cover and always gets him in the eyes.

What he gets right now is glowing red clock numbers on what seems to be a VCR/DVD combo player underneath an old TV. The numbers proclaim it is 4:14 AM.

The TV and VCR strike him as odd. He hasn’t seen such a boxy TV in years, and it’s been even longer since he’s seen anyone with a VCR of all things.

These two things make something in the back of his mind itch, because he feels like he has seen them before somewhere. Seen this particular set up at some point and it was important enough to stick out. So likely not one of the many hotels he’s visited through the years.

Leery now, he casts his blurry eyes around the room and starts to notice something that makes the bottom of his stomach drop.

He knows this room.

The floor is strewn in trash in a way that makes Tsuna fear Reborn will appear out of thin air to punish him for allowing things to get so messy.  _ ‘A Boss is neat and efficient.’ _ He can practically hear the rebuke. Along with the cocking of a gun in threat to get to cleaning.

Tsuna’s eyes follow the trash from wall to wall. Most of the packages seem to be Japanese brands, things like candies and a brand of shrimp flavored chips he remembers being fond of before he moved to Italy. There are water bottles and a few soda cans mixed in too, but it seems mostly like cola flavored sodas, one of the flavors he hates the most. His eyes finally find the trash can in the room, and he raises an eyebrow when he finds it in the middle of the room knocked over. Like someone had kicked it or something and all the trash had gone flying.

He finally pulls his eyes off the trash, and banishes Reborn’s beaten in lessons to clean up to the back of his mind for the moment. Instead he glides his eyes along the furniture around him. 

There is this weird echo of  _ familiar, but not  _ beating at him.

Like the TV and VHS/DVD player seems like he should know it off the bat, but then immediately left of the entertainment center is a dresser that he can only call overly cutesy. Things like anime styled kittens stickers and pastel colored glow stars are plastered over every available wooden space. He  _ knows _ he doesn’t know that dresser. It seems like the kind of thing that would stick out in his memories. 

Intrigued, and growing annoyed at the feeling scratching at the back of his mind like Natsu wanting the door opened. Tsuna throws the blankets wrapped around him off - absently noticing the color is a deep maroon and the sheets beneath an almost offensive shade of pink.

As soon as he goes to stand up the unthinkable happens, something that hasn't happened to him in years and he had been fairly sure he had outgrown upon losing his seal.

Tsuna trips on thin air.

The resounding bang of hitting the hardwood floor is loud, and he whacks the back of his head pretty hard. Leaving him staring at the room’s ceiling in a momentary daze.

And that's when it hits him how he knows this room.

Because if there is anything in this world he would know beyond a shadow of a doubt. The ceiling of his childhood bedroom certainly would be it. He had stared up at it enough through the first 15 years of his life. Usually after pulling a graceful move like he just had and falling to the floor like a blackout drunk fighting with gravity. He knows every crack in his bedroom ceiling better than he knows the back of his hands.

This is his room back in Namimori.

Startled by the discovery he sits up and takes stock of the room again. The TV stand is familiar and unchanged, but the dresser. Yes, he had a dresser in that same space, just lacking in the frankly girly stickers covering it. The desk below the window is still a plain pale wood that doesn’t match the other furniture at all. Yet on top of the desk is a lamp - sitting where his old green lamp once sat - the new lamp is pale pink with some odd pink fuzzy trim on the lampshade that makes Tsuna raise an eyebrow, because that just seems like a fire hazard. 

There are just enough things that he remembers in the room to make him sure that this is  _ really  _ his room - and on the other hand, there are enough things that are different to put him _ really _ on edge.

The posters on the walls all used to be from video games and animes he had liked as a child, but now it seems most of them are of musical groups - of the boy band idol variety. 

Now both his eyebrows are raised in question.

Granted, some of the guys on the posters are kinda hot - but regardless of that - he doesn’t understand why his room is so different, yet the same.

Tsuna goes to pull himself up off the floor and that is when he finally notices something weird about himself for the first time.

There is a weird weight on his chest.

Tsuna looks down and stares at his body and gives a very weak, but heartfelt “Cazzo…” at what he sees.

Those are boobs. Small, but definitely there.

He reaches up with shaking hands and pokes himself through his still tear soaked sleep shirt. He feels the jab sharply and hisses at the unpleasant sensation. So they were definitely attached.

With an odd sense of dread he quickly pats himself down uh...down there. He is surprised to find himself not wearing shorts for one thing, and only decked out in a pair of plain white panties under the sleep shirt. He is also missing something that has sort of been attached to him since birth if the one quick pat is anything to go by.

So, a girl then.

Tsuna wanders back over to the bed and throws himself down on it with a muted scream into a hot pink pillow.

“Cazzo.” He swears again hotly, just because it makes him feel better. Noticing the higher pitch of this body's voice immediately now that he isn’t screaming at ghosts.

Hayato would normally be the one swearing up a storm on his behalf but well…

“ _ Che due coglioni! _ ” He tacks on for good measure, just because it was one of Hayato’s personal favorite swears, and if his loyal right-hand isn’t here to swear for him - he will swear for his right hand. “Cazzo, cazzo,  _ cazzo! _ ” He finishes viciously, even if the italian curses sound absolutely ludicrous in his new voice.   


He lays on the bed for a few minutes to gather himself together. Staring at the face of some idol he doesn’t know the name of, but is plastered in multiple places around the room. So it must be a personal favorite. The idol has black hair and an interesting earring shaped like a dragon, he is winking on the poster in a way that Tsuna finds kind of forced looking. The font below the idol is in bold bright red proclaiming the name of the band as SEXY DRAGON. 

Tsuna is horrified at himself. Herself. Whatever. 

He turns away from the staring eyes of idols and boy bands and covers his head with the hot pink pillow he had been using to scream and swear into. He forces himself to breathe. To feel the scratchy-parched feeling in his throat from screaming and crying. The itchy feeling of his puffy eyes.

The gaping empty hollow in his heart.

It’s the void inside him that almost brings the tears back. Not the room or the foreign body or the endlessly staring eyes of idols. It is the looming wasteland inside that tries to drag him back to the screaming and denial.

He touches that empty place inside him, the same place that had felt so full and brilliant only days ago. Full of softness and sunshine and storms, and all the things that made the chasm inside feel less like the void of space and more like an endless summer sky locked happily in his heart. 

Now all he feels is his own shackled Flames grasping desperately at nothing.

It’s the nothingness that gives him a momentary pause, because he knows that even when his Guardians died there had been  _ something _ in the void. The ragged edges of where they had once been bound together, the frayed threads of his connection had remained because he would not let them go so easily. No, he had still been left with the flicker of where their Flames anchored to him when they died. 

Left with the echo of his Guardians. With their love, their devotion, their final painful moments. It was agony to touch and know only that they had loved and suffered. But it had been something to cling to near the end regardless. 

But now that hunger inside him claws for connection again. Raw and unfulfilled. There is nothing, not even the echo of death and love to touch. He is empty.

But not empty like he had been before, this is the famine inside him that he remembers vaguely following him before Reborn came into his life and helped him break the seal on his Flames. The simple unbearable feeling of  _ loneliness _ .

Tsuna blinks as his thoughts blur for a moment in painful hope, and he makes a shaky noise as he realizes what the void inside him means.

They aren’t gone, just not there yet.

Lambo sent him somewhere he hasn’t met his Guardians yet. The hollow in his heart can still be filled with more than blood and regret.

Tsuna finally drops the pillow and sits up, ignoring the eyes of idols and the faint glow of pastel stars, instead he focuses on the glowing red number of the VCR/DVD clock and thinks.

Does he dare?

He bites his lip and closes his eyes, and the coveting writhing _thing_ inside him peers out of the gloom in his heart and demands the return of what is theirs. 

This isn’t his life though, the posters and fuzzy lamp and feminine traits all point to this being something else entirely. He is...possessing some poor girl version of himself. He will be stealing everything from them. Taking her life just to cling to his own.

But Lambo’s fierce look comes to his mind, the determination that Tsuna would survive no matter what.

Even if that survival was to steal a whole other person's life?

He opens his eyes and looks around the room. Sees the trash and backpack untouched. He can see the edge of a math test stuffed into the same drawer he used to hide all his bad tests from his mom. He can see a slash of bright red that reads his grade as an abysmal 15%.

_ Dame-Tsuna  _ the greedy part of him hisses,  _ she is not using this life. _

He fights back, telling himself she doesn’t have Reborn to whip her into shape yet. It’s not completely her fault. Much of the blame lies on the seal on this body. She will get better with time.

_ But we don’t need time. Don’t need Reborn. We can have some of ours returned within days.  _ The pit inside him cries out. 

The math test he knows is from school. Though he isn’t sure it’s Middle school.

However, school means Takeshi and Kyoya and Ryohei. Three of his could be returned to the place inside him as soon as tomorrow. Could partially fill the void and stop this infernal ache from tearing him apart.

All he has to do is take this girl's life for his own. To become them and rebuild from the ground up.

Could he really do it? Be Dame-Tsuna again and start over from the beginning? Trip over his own two feet and cower from fights while others fight for him?

A flash of Lambo bubbling blood from his smiling lips burns across his mind, and he violently rejects the idea.

_ No _ , no one will die for him this time! He will fight, and fight, and  _ fight _ until even Hibari will call him Carnivore. He will rebuild his empire from the ground up and make sure they are a force that can shake the world. This time he won’t show his belly to anyone. 

He will be strong enough to find and kill the one responsible for his beloved's murders. He will make them suffer for what they did to his Lambo.

Tsuna clenches his fists and takes a deep breath. Feels his lungs expand and something deep inside himself settles.

He is the heir of the Vongola Famiglia, he is Decimo, he is Mafia. 

The Mafia takes what it wants, and what Tsunayoshi wants is everything that is  _ his _ returned to his rightful hands.

Even if those hands are someone else's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Tsuna a little broke? You bet your sweet ass he is. This is Mafia!Tsuna boys and girls, he aint ur sweet friendship-is-power protag in this one. 
> 
> SEXY DRAGON is not real, but ya'know - I bet they would have some fire albums if they were.
> 
> Also again; this is an oooooollllddddd fanfic. If you spot any errors lemme know. I would not be surprised if you do.
> 
> *sets out guitar case* now leave me reviews or I will use this guitar and start playing Wonderwall. This is a **threat.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *eyebrow wriggle*

The first thing to do in this situation is to gather intel.

He needs names, important facts, things he isn’t sure about and doesn’t know if he can bluff.

He has no memories from the girl whose body he has taken, and is happier for that fact because it helps him know that everything that happened isn’t a dream. All his memories are sharp and clear and he knows for an intimate fact  _ (many, many intimate facts) _ that he was certainly male for his whole life previously.

So being a girl will require research.

The first thing he hunts down is his...her name.

That part will take some getting used to.

But yes, name first.

Tsuna takes out a few of the tests from the desk drawer and skims the equations, giving a breath of relief when the answers come easy. He knows this body is sealed, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting his mind, just his body and access to his...her Flames.  _ Dio _ this was hard to keep straight.

Shaking off the sense of oddness, he promises to work on the pronoun thing later. 

Instead he brings his eyes up to the name messily scrawled on paper and winces at his own handwriting. His knuckles throb in sympathy because if Reborn saw this he would have rapped her knuckles over and over until she was writing like a professional calligrapher. He knows from experience.

But once he manages to decode the chicken scratch. The name becomes apparent.

Tsuruhime.

“ _ Che due coglioni!”  _ He swears with feeling, because was it too much to hope that in this parallel world his father could have done him  _ one _ good god-damned favor and given him a normal name?

He takes a deep breath and wracks his brain for the name. It has something to do with the Tokugawa Shogunate he’s pretty sure. His whole family was named after them in his world. 

So Tsuruhime was probably some shogun's wife or daughter. Not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but useful to know in case it was a point of conversation.

But the name is not a problem. He is going to insist, with emphasis. He prefers to be called Tsuna. Nicknames are a thing and he will not go around having his Guardians calling him something as over the top as Tsuruhime anymore then he allowed the use of Tsunayoshi.

He might still be able to get away with Tsu-kun or Tsu-chan come to think about it. 

He has a feeling he is going to need a notebook for this.

Regardless, he has the name. Sawada Tsuruhime. Who was, as of  _ right now _ , very firmly going to be Sawada Tsuna. 

Next he glances over the worksheets and returned tests and flinches at the bright red marks on each one. None of them are above 20%. He is disheartened, but not truly surprised. The one thing that  _ does _ surprise him is that the math test he is holding isn't from Middle School. 

There are no corrections written in bleeding red ink on the back of the paper. A clear sign that this newest test was  _ not  _ Middle School work.

Agawa-sensei, Tsuna’s less than pleasant Middle School math teacher, had been downright vicious about spelling out Tsuna’s faults on each test. Taking the child’s continued failure as some sort of personal slight and doing her damnedest to make sure Tsuna knew what a failure he was in vibrant crimson comments. The lack of cruel corrections is more than enough proof that, even though the paper lacked a date, it was pre-Middle School.

So Elementary School tests - the math was too simple for High School - meaning Tsuruhime was in elementary and already failing so miserably it was almost cringe-worthy.

He really was  _ Dame-Tsuna _ in this world too, wasn’t he?

He shivers and can practically hear the explosions when Reborn finds this nonsense. There is going to be so much studying, and  _ suffering _ . Mostly suffering.

He drags a hand down his face and sighs, putting the tests back into the drawer despite wanting to put them into a paper shredder more. He doesn’t know what paperwork is important at the moment, and a good Boss never destroys resources until they are sure it is utterly useless. Even if said Boss really,  _ really _ wants to.

So an overly complicated name, and horrible grades. It was a start he could work with.

He stands up and carefully steps around the trash on the floor. He feels oddly unbalanced, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the seal blocking full access to his flames, or if the more feminine traits of his body are throwing him off. Regardless, he has to pay special attention to moving his legs so as to not trip on something and end up on his back again as he heads towards the closet.

Sliding the door open quietly, Tsuna wrinkles his nose in confusion of what he sees inside.

Inside the closet is half a dozen white button up shirts hanging neatly - the same kind he knows is part of the Namimori elementary school uniform - but next to the shirts is a couple of pairs of the  _ male  _ uniform pants.

What?

Tsuna cocks his head to the side in puzzlement. Why did his female counterpart wear the male uniform to school?

He looks around the room again in question and is reminded of how girly everything in here is. The pastels and pinks and boy bands all stark reminders that this was a girl's room in spite of what the school uniforms would otherwise imply.

Growing annoyed with the question, Tsuna turns back to the closet and digs past the uniforms.

Besides the male uniforms in question, there is a single female uniform stuffed in the back of the closet. But between the two different sets of uniforms is a rainbow of shirts in various styles. Some with lace on the neckline, or delicate little drawstrings. Many of the shirts have more of the cutesy graphics that Tsuna was expecting to find. Things like unicorns or popular show characters printed on the front.

There are also a  _ whole lot _ of band shirts. A terrifying amount of them to be honest.

_ (Tsuna makes a mental note to burn all of them. Especially the ones that say SEXY DRAGON) _

Still, most of the shirts seem like something a girl would wear. So it seems like Tsuruhime had only been wearing boy clothes to school. Not just as a fashion preference. Otherwise Tsuna is pretty sure the rest of the clothes would have been more tomboyish in flavor to match.

Which leads to the question of _ why _ she would have been wearing the male uniform? Was she body shy? Didn’t like skirts? Was she a  _ delinquent?  _

_ Mio Dio _ help him if that was the answer. Hibari was more likely to  _ kill him _ then rejoin the fold if Tsuruhime had been flagrantly breaking the school dress-code for kicks. That sort of disrespect for the rules of his territory would not be easily forgiven.

Tsuna shakes off the shiver of fear he feels down his spine and moves on with his search for answers.

So, horrible name. Horrible grades. Odd taste in school uniform. 

Tsuna casts his eyes towards the glowing red numbers on the clock and hisses when he reads that it is nearing 6 AM. He barely has 2 hours to put together the whole story of some girl's life and wear it with confidence if he plans to make it to school today.

He doesn’t think that is long enough. Not enough time to make this believable  _ at all _ . 

The empty place inside him doesn’t care - it chants and demands he go regardless. Damn the consequences of faulty information and poorly planned lies. School is where those that  _ belong _ to him will be. Going is the fastest way to find the warm flickering Flames of those he loves more than life itself, and the quickest way to put them back into the space in his heart where they belong. School is the simplest answer to his painful problem.

Depending on how old Tsuruhime is, and what grade she is in, who will be at the school will be different. However, no matter how young Tsuruhime is, Tsuna knows with painful certainty that Takeshi will be there. 

The popular baseball prodigy was a constant in Tsuna’s life. From Kindergarten to all the way to their early grave, he’d been there. Not always by Tsuna’s side, but always in the picture. Always with a smile - real or fake - aimed at him and a joke that touched the edge of  _ too far  _ on his tongue. Takeshi, his beloved Rain, would be there - like he always was.

Tsuna swallows down the rush of need and want and  _ hunger.  _ Pushes the covetous thing back into the abyss inside his heart, and thinks.

This is not enough time. He won’t have a clear picture in time to go. He doesn’t even know how old this body is - let alone what grade she is in. Going is foolish, no matter how much his soul screams too.

However, by not going, he will certainly raise questions as well.  _ Dame-Tsuna _ he might have been, and late to class was his modus operandi for most of his childhood. But he had never been one to be absent for anything but extreme emergencies. If that holds true for this world - and Tsuruhime wasn’t a trouble-making delinquent  _ (please Lord, please don’t be that.) - _ then people would want to know why she had skipped. Why her mother hadn't called in her absence. 

She’d need to be at a funeral or the hospital or something to have a valid excuse to avoid school without question.

Tsuna purses his slightly chapped lips in thought, and swallows past the burning desire inside to do something  _ fantastically _ stupid.

Instead his shoulders shake minutely, and he pulls his left hand up to inspect it with dim amber eyes.

Tsuruhime’s arms and wrists are thin as twigs. No muscle or fat to be seen. Her knuckles are sort of knobby, but she has long thin fingers and clean fingernails. There is nothing remarkable about her hands beyond the lack of calluses and scars that he can see. 

Tsuna barely notices any of these things - too busy seeing the phantom of charred flesh and blackened bone superimposed on her hand. He swallows bile back and drops the now shaking hand back to his side. 

The Hospital, huh?

He clenches both hands at his side into fists, and takes a calming breath, forcing the shaking to stop. 

_ He can probably swing that. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _*Lays back eating cheese and grapes like a roman senator while vibing to Florence and the Machine*_
> 
> Ahhhh my fav thing to write. Steadily darkening devotion. *chefs kiss*
> 
> Also please feel free to guess where you think this is going. I will be delighted by how wild you guys manage to get.
> 
> Leave a comment or review - especially if you noticed something glaringly wrong. Again, this thing is ancient and unbeta'd


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Finally remembers to post next chapter*

At 6:15 AM Sawada Tsuruhime descends the stairs of her childhood home, walks into her kitchen, turns the first burner on the gas stove up to high - and sets the back of her left hand on the burner until the smell of burnt flesh is _neausiating._

It feels poetic.

He fed his flesh to Flames, and failed to save those he loved. So now he feeds her flesh to flames to start her on a path to gaining those loved ones back.

The searing of Sky Flames fueled on nothing more than pain and loss is etched into his mind, and these gas-fed flames are not even in the same class as the fire that had scorched him to the bone. He can still feel the broken writhing mass under his skin, it’s waiting to be pulled at like a sore muscle. Eager to spark back to life and devour him from both inside and out once more. The Flames are banked slightly behind the suffocating prison of this body’s seal. But Tsuna knows it would only take a little work to ignite the fury inside him once more. These Flames don’t care for the limits on his body, seal or no seal. They care that he is willing to pay in flesh and blood for their power. They care that he always has a last resort.

Tsuna pulls his hand out of the fire with little more than a wince. Ignores the pooling blood and blistering mess he has made of his left hand and turns the burner off. 

He had prepared for this at least a little. Had changed into some of Tsuruhime’s everyday clothes - A simple red shirt with itchy lace at the collar and some _oddly_ short black shorts _,_ both items chosen to help hide any blood splatters - and brought the first-aid kit out of the bathroom on his way down the stairs. 

Tsuna hastily wraps the steadily bleeding wounds so that none of the blood will end up on his mother’s floor. As he plans to keep her in the dark about this as long as possible, as her babying could impede his current plans if she finds out about this _fantastically_ stupid decision of his. It also will do him no good if people are freaking out when he walks to the hospital while pouring blood.

A voice in the back of Tsuna’s head that sounds _terrifyingly_ like Reborn snorts about _‘weak-stomached civilians’._

Wrappings tight, Tsuna nods to himself and moves onto part two of his hastily constructed plan.

He grabs her backpack - full to bursting with mostly empty notebooks and pens - and walks out the door with a confidence that anyone who actually knew the real Tsuruhime would find startling, and quietly makes his way towards the closest hospital.

Tsuna hopes he will be able to crack one of the hospital computers one-handed. He is going to need Tsuruhime’s medical records for the rest of his plans to take shape.

\---------------

“Making _breakfast?_ ” 

Tsuna tries not to laugh at the poor doctor’s face - but it is very hard.

Dr. Honda’s disbelief is just as apparent as the check-in nurse’s had been, and twice as funny considering how harried and tired the older man looked just walking in the door. Tsuna fondly thinks he looks a bit like Shamal had the last time Tsuna wandered into the medical wing of the Vongola Villa with a knife stuck in his left shoulder. All incredulous wide eyes and half panicked questions about _‘How could this have possibly happened? You have Vongola Intuition!? It makes no sense?!’_

Granted, Shamal had been easier to dissuade with a flippant mention of not dodging Reborn’s daily greeting fast enough, and ending up with a knife for the trouble. 

Dr. Honda, on the other hand, seems to be having a hard time accepting Tsuna’s cheerful white lie about a cooking injury at face value.

“I’m very clumsy.” Tsuna agrees with a brilliant smile at the Doctor’s spluttering - he isn’t sure who he is channeling more, his Mother’s oblivious cheer or Takeshi’s laughter covered homicidal intent, but either way it seemed to be making the Doctor leery. 

So _probably_ more Takeshi then. Might need to reel in the homicide a bit. More Nana, less Mafia swordsmen.

Dr. Honda clears his throat uncomfortably, but pushes on despite his nerves. Tsuna feels his respect for the salt-and-peppered haired Doctor raise a small fraction. 

“Some parts of your burn border on 3rd degree, Kuramu-san. You are very likely going to have some scars for the rest of your life when they heal. Especially the spots where you say your hand was caught on the metal filaments of the stove.” Dr. Honda takes a small breath and takes a moment to push his glasses back up his nose, grey eyes darting down at his clipboard before returning to Tsuna’s face.

Tsuna has to stop himself from reacting at the fake last name with another stupid Takeshi styled grin. 

Tsuna _obviously_ wasn’t going to just show up alone to a hospital and admit himself under the name Sawada Tsuruhime. That would get him busted within hours - if not by a well meaning nurse calling his mother for a check up, then by the spies Tsuna knows are probably stationed to be watching for this girl’s wellbeing on Iemitsu’s behalf. The barest chance Tsuruhime’s name on admittance papers could be found was still too high a risk.

So when filling out the entry paperwork he may have had a little fun at his own expense with the name. Listing his female body under the very bland, yet hilarious name of Kuramu Sora. 

“Your injury is very serious young lady, and in all my years I can safely say I have never seen someone with such a serious burn from -” The Doctor’s grey eyes dart down again to the clipboard as he reads over the notes the RN left for him, thankfully oblivious to Tsuna’s own inner amusement. “- And I quote ‘ _Making some Miso for breakfast._ ’” 

Tsuna has to stop himself from giggling hysterically, especially at the scolding tone and the Doctor calling him a ‘young lady.’ Dr. Honda would have gotten along _swimmingly_ with Shamal. They could share drinks and bemoan over Tsuna’s poor health choices.

“Kuramu-san.” The Doctor’s tone is grave, and it helps Tsuna sober up from where he is trying his damnedest to _not_ smile like a maniac and instead like a vapid airhead. “If this was not an accident, please...Let someone here know.” He asks very gently, a hint of worry in his tired grey eyes as he gestures with his free hand at the now professionally wrapped bandages of Tsuna’s left hand.

All the nurses and doctors have been on edge since Tsuna showed up - all alone, with a fresh bleeding burn and a frankly ludicrous excuse for it. 

Tsuna knows they are assuming abuse at home, or something worse as the cause. No matter how many times ‘ _she_ ’ insists it’s ‘ _her_ ’ own clumsiness that caused it. No one seems willing to buy.

Vaguely touched, and mostly _uncomfortable_ with the allegations, Tsuna laughs again. Unsure if the laugh comes out as the innocent ditzy giggle of an Elementary School girl and not the startled laugh of a grief-mad 25 year old man. Either way Dr. Honda narrows his eyes at Tsuna’s flippancy. 

“No, no. I promise no one did this to me!” Tsuna waves his hands, even the heavily bandaged one, in front of his stolen body in a disarming way. Smile waning just a bit as he continues to speak. “I’m just very clumsy, and unlucky. I promise”

Tsuna doesn’t bother to tell the Doctor this pain ranks a distant _20th_ on worst pains he’s had in the last 48 hours alone. The tops slots all firmly taken by the agony inside and the missing bonds of his Guardians. Each severed thread a sort of phantom limb - a pain that isn’t real to this body, but Tsuna knows should be there. Should be unsurvivable suffering happening with every beat of this poor possessed girl’s heart. He feels the endless echo of his Familiga’s deaths and doesn’t know which lost connection he would have preferred to die with - only that he _should_ have died with them regardless. 

A little skin burn is nothing compared to that.

“As you say, Kuramu-san.” Doctor Honda agrees with obvious hesitance. Grey eyes still darting back and forth between the clipboard in his hands, and the bandages on Tsuna’s left hand. “I’m going to write you a few prescriptions. Some topical creams to help with the blisters, and maybe one for itching once things start to scab if you’d like. I’m afraid you’ll need your parents to get them filled though, since I'm going to be adding a painkiller on top of the creams. Is that going to be a problem?”

It’s a loaded question. Digging for information and if this poor girl needs help.

Tsuna likes this Doctor’s attempts at helping, despite having it all wrong. He is older, and obviously tired in both body and mind - but he is still a good man. It’s nice the first person Tsuna has spoken to very much in this too painful new life is someone kind.

“No problem at all. I’ll get my papa to fill it out when he gets home from work.” Tsuna demurs easily, adding another lie to distance ‘Kuramu Sora’ from Sawada Tsuruhime to anyone who might be listening. The idea of Iemitsu doing _anything_ for him is almost as absurd as getting a 2nd degree burn from making soup. It makes it that much harder to lie with a smile on his stolen face, a smile that still feels the tiniest bit too close to Takeshi’s when he’s on edge. 

Tsuna thinks he might not be able to smile like anything else in truth. Smiling hurts too much right now. He should be _dead_. Burnt to a cinder and rejoining his Guardians in the beyond to beg their forgiveness for failing them all. Should have burnt himself to bare bones to protect Lambo from the fate that Tsuna’s choices damned him too. 

To be sitting here in Namimori, safe and whole and alive - is like spitting on their memory.

That he can smile at all right now is a miracle all its own.

“Right, well...I’ll go get this written up and put into the system. I’ll send the nurse by when it’s time to change your dressings. Do you know how to use the call button on your bed?”

Tsuna nods eagerly, and uses a non-burnt hand to tap next to the big red button attached to the remote laying on a mostly untouched hospital bed. Trying to get the Doctor out of the room in spite of his good intentions. “I’ll be fine! Thank you for everything you’ve done.” Tsuna says, and that at least, is the truth.

With one last long look, Dr. Honda finally bows and leaves Tsuna alone in the observation room he’d been admitted to a few hours ago. The burn was deemed not critical enough to warrant being sent to a burn treatment center, but serious enough to need watching while the deepest parts of the burn still bled and needed constant changing for the first hour or two. A nurse had told Tsuna he probably would be discharged back home before nightfall. Or sooner - the nurse hinted - if an adult would come and sign all the paperwork to take the girl home.

Tsuna had laughed them off too, and told them about how busy _‘Papa’_ was. Which wasn’t technically a lie.

Iemitsu had always been too busy to help his family with their troubles, big or small. The idea of him showing up for anything short of Tsuna’s _funeral_ is laughable. ‘ _Papa’_ was very busy indeed.

Regardless, now that he’s finally been left alone for more than two minutes…

Tsuna hops off the bed, and almost faceplants again. Balance still frustratingly nonexistent in this body, and he mentally adds _‘break the seal’_ to his to-do list. He is not going to flop around and fall over every ten minutes again. He lived that hell-life for almost a decade, and he’s had more than enough falling down stairs to last him multiple lifetimes. 

Righting his body by grabbing the rails of the hospital bed, Tsuna pushes off once he’s sure the vertigo has passed. Forcing his tiny, sock clad feet to walk slowly and purposefully towards the corner of the room.

Sitting in the corner is Tsuna’s goal. One of the nurse’s rolling computers stations.

The computer is nothing special looking, black and boxier then he expected it to be. It is hard wired to the wall by a thick plug that makes Tsuna think it is probably charging right now. The tall cart the computer is attached to is interesting, as it has half a dozen little drawers full of medicine that is key locked to the Hospital staff’s ID-cards. Obviously meant to be used to dispense meds to the nearby rooms while filling out the paperwork involved in administering the medicine at the same time.

Tsuna just has to laugh that he doesn’t even need to leave the room to get his information.

Tsuna hums a merry beat - It’s bouncy, and if he was asked, he’d be forced to admit it was from an Italian pop song that wouldn’t be around for another decade at the earliest. Still, he likes it when things go smoothly. An easy job was always worth a good song.

Having to stand on sock-clad tippy-toes to use the computer comfortably, Tsuna reaches into his back pocket and produces Dr. Honda’s ID. Eagerly sliding the plastic card into the designated slot in the keyboard. The bright blue screen that had been locked to tampering disappears, replaced with the homescreen of the medical computer and a small box popping up in the corner that reads _‘Honda Daichi M.D, Hospitalist’._

He feels a little bad for swiping the kindly Doctor’s ID, but still. Needs and wants and all that throp. Tsuna is a Mafia boss, and he’s had almost 10 years to become accustomed to wanting things and immediately getting them. He doesn’t have time to waste on trying to crack the computer open the old fashioned way. Especially when he has limited time and a hand wrapped with enough bandages to make the ancient Egyptians proud.

Speaking of bandaged appendages.Typing one handed is a pain in the ass. Thankfully it is no harder than some of the crazy scenarios that Reborn had put him through. Like reloading a gun one handed without dropping it. Or hot-wiring a car while under fire _AND_ one handed. Both of those lessons had taken a lot more dexterity than one might expect, and gotten him a _lot_ of whacks with the Leon-mallet for failing or taking too long.

Still, Tsuna is grateful for his spartan tutors' merciless training. Falling back on to his training is one of the only things keeping him together at this point.

Whenever Reborn shows up this lifetime Tsuna might just try to make the hitman’s life a little easier this go-around as thanks. Not much easier mind you, because Reborn deserves to endure some of the suffering he reaped in return for his sadism. But a little easier. Maybe Tsuna will make him an espresso once or something…

Tsuna shakes off the thoughts and focuses. He can’t afford to be distracted at the moment.

Hitching his school bag up, he pulls out an empty notebook with a pen tucked inside it and lays it flat on what little space is available on the computer desk. Under normal circumstances he would have used a USB drive, snatched the intel, and then gone over it at home at his own leisure. Or relegated the task to someone like Shoichi and Spanner so that he didn’t miss anything not glaringly obvious. Computers were not his forte by any means. 

However that option isn’t exactly available to him at the moment, so he will have to make due with more primitive means. 

He opens the book to a blank page and turns back to the computer to start digging. 

It is lucky he grabbed a doctor’s ID, Tsuna notes absently. A nurse’s wouldn’t have gotten him access nearly as easy. A lot of the medical files are sealed on a case by case basis for the nursing staff based on who they are assigned to care for. Dr. Honda, thankfully, doesn’t have this barrier to contend with. So it is no problem to dig his grubby little hand into the system and pull up the medical files for one Sawada Tsuruhime.

Tsuna browses intently. Trying to memorize as much as he can before he turns to write it down in the notebook. 

Sawada Tsuruhime - Born to Sawada Iemitsu and Sawada Nana at Namimori General. Birthday is October 14th. She is currently 10 years old.

Tsuna stops at that and does a double take at what his eyes are reading. 

_10?!_

Tsuruhime is only in _4th grade?!_

 _How…_.The Bazooka was only supposed to work in 10 year jumps. He had already accepted that Lambo had done something with his Lightning Flames and his Horn to cause the Bazooka to work backwards and somehow parallel. But to add extra time?

Maybe Lambo hadn’t been in control of the gun at all. Maybe he just shot it and hoped the damaged weapon would somehow save Tsuna when he could not. That seemed like the kind of thing his Lambo would pull.

Still, 10 years old huh? He had 3 years before anything dealing with the Mafia would happen at the earliest. Maybe 4 if he’s remembering the date that Reborn appeared wrong. 

It takes a few seconds for his new time-table to finally sink in, and when it does he freezes.

That is _too long_.

The angry, hungry thing in his heart hisses and rebels at the new knowledge. 3 years? _4 years_? How can he possibly stand more than a few days of this horrible desolate life without his Guardians to fall back on? How can he be expected to wait up to 4 whole, painful years before he gets to set eyes on his faithful right-hand? On his mischievous mist? On his dear Lambo? 

Tsuna has to physically restrain himself from sending his newly bandaged fist flying through the monitor in a blind rage. 

_No_. It will not be that long. He will not stand for it.

He shackles the fury away and tucks into the same place as those blazing white Flames that continue to flicker dimly behind the seal. He doesn’t have _time_ to dwell on the newest hiccup in his plan. He will have time to rage when he finishes recon. For right now he needs to finish the mission, then get away without being caught. He can do this without breaking down or breaking anything.

He forces himself to keep digging. Noticing no listed allergies, nor any listings for surgeries. There does seem to be a file from when Tsuruhime was around 5 years old - and it has her diagnosed with a case of childhood vertigo, likely caused by an inner ear problem. But nothing ever came from the diagnoses. No medication, no further action, no referrals to another doctor to help with the vertigo.

The ‘vertigo’ would definitely be when the seal was placed. As Tsuna _vividly_ remembers forgetting how to walk for a month after Nono’s little gift to him, and all the embarrassment that had followed while being in preschool and not being able to _walk by himself_.

Tsuna hums at his find, and reads deeper into the case as he rapidly writes everything down.

Apparently his preschool teacher had made Nana bring Tsuruhime to the doctors when she began exhibiting ‘regressive behavior’ in class. Which Tsuna assumes means the whole ‘ _suddenly forgetting how to walk and staring blankly at the empty air for hours at a time_ ’ phase he’d gone through. He doesn’t remember a doctor's visit in his own timeline - but honestly, he doesn’t remember a hell of a lot after just getting the seal so that isn’t surprising.

He does end up writing down the name of the doctor who made the diagnosis - one Oshiro Yuumi M.D, Pediatrician - and moves on. 

He absently searches for Doctor Oshiro when he reaches the end of Tsuruhime’s very short medical record. Making a disgusted scoff when he doesn’t find her listed in the hospital’s database anymore.

Instead he finds the woman’s _obituary_ listed online. The date literally days after Tsuruhime was brought to her practice and diagnosed. The cause of death listed is a car-crash. But you couldn’t _pay_ Tsuna enough money to actually believe that. 

Really? How damned sloppy was Iemitsu that he had to resort to killing civilian doctors to cover up the seal? Was it so hard to bring in a mafia-aligned doctor? Or hell, even just send a Mist? _Someone_ in Iemitsu's pocket could have faked the appointment and sent a notice to the school that Tsuruhime was fine _(even if she really, really was not_ ) instead of murdering damned nobodies.

Disgusted, he makes a note by the doctors name to fucking _kill_ his father this time around. Literally as soon as either Hibari or Basil seem willing to run the CEDEF, Iemitsu is worm-food. 

Tsuna takes a nice deep breath, and also banishes the impulse to murder his father down into the hollow of his heart with the white-hot Flames. Again, being mad is for later, when he can actually deal with being mad and not possibly burning down the hospital. 

There is making a clean getaway, and then there is _arson_. Reborn would have been fine with either one, but Tsuna is pretty sure the correct choice in this scenario is ‘clean getaway’.

So instead of starting fires, he figures out how to pop open the medicine drawers on the roller cart that the computer is attached to. Which takes him a few moments as there is a program he needs to run on the computer itself to actually do it.

But once done all the drawers unlock without a fuss, and Tsuna spends a few moments digging through the various shelves of gauze and needles to find what he is after.

On the fourth shelf he finds the medicine still left in there. And he helps himself to literally everything he sees. Every packet of pain-killers, every tube of burn cream, every antibacterial cream, every antibiotic. Whatever is in this cart is coming home with him.

He doesn’t know what Dr. Honda prescribed for him exactly, and he doesn’t have time to really figure it out. So he’ll just take a little of everything and figure out what he needs at home.

As Tsuna shoves pill bottles and blister packs into his bag, he vaguely wonders how hard it would be to get a hold of Shamal. _Mio Dio_ , what wouldn’t he give for his personal doctor instead of having to scramble around with civilians and their medication. Shamal could have him fixed up in around 20 minutes, and that's if the man was dragging his feet. A couple mosquito bites and some Mist nonsense, and Tsuna would be good to go. No problem.

The burn - as he can already start to feel - is going to be a _bitch_ of a problem. It hurts like sin now, but once it starts to actually scab it is going to drive him insane. 

Well...more insane.

He clicks his tongue and finishes his theft by scrolling down to the main function screen of the computer and proceeding to set the machine to do a complete factory reset. Clicking through the four separate confirmation screens asking if he _really_ wants to delete all the data on this computer.

Hayato, Spanner, or Shoichi could have made a much more eloquent solution to ensuring no one was able to pull up what Tsuna had been looking at. But sometimes the brute-force method is all you have to work with. So that's what he goes with. Accepting the final confirmation to begin the reset with a smirk.

As the screen goes black and starts reformatting, Tsuna spins around and digs out a second set of clothing from the bottom of his bag. A simple grey hoodie and white pants combo - the most boring and bland things he could find in the girl’s closet this morning. 

He hastily changes into the new clothes, all while making sure to tuck his fluffy hair under the hood and synch it tight to ensure it doesn’t fall. Then he grabs one of the medical masks in the room and slides it over the bottom of his face. Ensuring that the only thing visible about him is his eyes.

He shoves the red shirt and black shorts into the backpack and re-shoulders it. Then shoves both his hands into the front of his hoodie to hide the fact one is bandaged. And he walks right out of the room.

He leisurely makes his way past the nurses station - where they are busy on the phone and gossiping. Then Past Doctor Honda himself, who was standing in the hallway with his assistant. And finally past the waiting room and out the automated doors without so much as a backwards glance.

He takes a deep breath of fresh air as he makes his way across the parking lot. Laughing quietly to himself as he can practically _feel_ Reborn’s disgust at the simplicity of his disguise. The arcobelano would be shouting up a storm right now about how it was only dumb-luck that kept him from getting busted. Tsuna took way too many risks for so little gained from it. _What was he thinking?!_

Tsuna banishes Reborn’s voice away with the ease of long practice. He didn’t get much from the hospital sure, but that is its own information in a way. A confirmation that nothing world-altering was happening to this body health wise at least. Honestly, what if she had asthma or some debilitating allergy? He would have hated to find that out from first hand experience. Better to start a whole profile on Tsuruhime like she was some Mafia rival he was investigating instead of just letting things go to chance.

Now with Part One of his hastily made plan complete, he moves on to Part Two - getting excused from school for the next few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh...Once more we meet here; at the end of all things. I knew you would come.
> 
> Again, I barely read this over. Any wonky grammar or blatant misspelling go ahead and blast me for in the comments.
> 
> Read, Review, Curse my Lineage unto Endless Ruin and Suffering. Whatever you're feeling.


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